The Clone Army of Testers
by Brown hair and eyes
Summary: Coulson is caffeine deprived. Tony Stark is very happy with his new clone army. The troopers are just glad that they aren't being shot at yet...


The Clone Army of Testers  
AN: It was an idea than begged to be written. Feedback on whether I should continue this is appreciated! If Coulson seems a bit off, well, he's caffeine deprived and resurrection _really_ takes it out of you. Enjoy.

"Stark. Release the hostages. Now." Coulson looked about two minutes away from strangling Tony, he had not appreciated being called out in the middle of the night as the sole "Expert in Tony Stark" to make force Tony to hand over the new arrivals to Shield.

"They're not hostages; they're refugees! And they want to stay with me!"

"They need to be taken to Shield for their own health and safety. _The fact they want to stay with you is enough to make their mental health dubious._ The fact is Stark that you can't have a clone army. The suit is bad enough."

"They came through a mysterious portal. Now, which one of us there has ever been through a mysterious portal? I'll even give you a clue; he's a cute playboy philanthropist with a brand new clone army."

"Falling though through a portal does not make you an expert!" Coulson took a deep breath, so this was Fury's revenge for the cactus incident... "Look Stark, you don't have anywhere for them to sleep, let alone the resources to cope with the number of space-war trauma victims who probably have PTSD at the very least-"

"I have experience with that. Pepper can find some beds in the mansion, it's not as if those floors were going to be used for anything important." (Pepper would inform him later that, yes they had been and yes, there were going to be consequences.)

"And you have no way to help them assimilate into normal society, while Shield-"

"Would use their considerable resources to imprison them for decades as a security threat to the country and the space time continuum so your geeks could study and dissect them for their biology and knowledge of future technology. And they wouldn't share the data with the rest of the scientific community. Whereas I will provide them with gainful employment, treatment for their health problems and an opportunity to help serve the _whole_ scientific community."

Coulson took a moment to consider this statement, consider all the possible interpretations, eliminate all the sane and "subservient in any way to authority" options because he (unfortunately) _knew_ Tony Stark and came up with a rough translation of the initial statement.

"So you're going to use them as testers for your more volatile experiments that any one else who is sane or actually knows you refuses to do, grant them therapy by exposing them to regular traumatic stress so it can't actually be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as the exposure to danger, explosions and death is ongoing and playing with their DNA and weaponry yourself?"

"I neither conform or deny that statement." Tony's face was blank. That's a yes then, thought Coulson tiredly.

"Fine. Okay. Whatever. Any explosions you can cover up and pay for." Coulson left a shocked Tony behind him as he strode towards his car. He could report failure to Fury. In the morning after a leisurely breakfast. After 10 hours of damage was already complete. Who said revenge should be served cold, it should be served without mercy to half-blind employers who decided to place their employees on Stark duty in the middle of the night with no caffeine.

"Did that just happen or was I dreaming? He must be really addicted to caffeine to be that bad without a fix." Tony mused.

"Sir. Your orders, sir? Can we stay? Because if so I would like to organise a perimeter and watch schedule." Clone Captain CT-7567 enquired.

This new general seemed acceptable, he was obviously a genius of some sort and he seemed to care about the troops and frankly any base unlikely to be attacked by droids at any moment sounded good. The trooper made a small note to use the same feeding schedule for this "Tony Stark" as he had for the other genius Jedi he had met as they both seem to share a tendency to zone out and not pay particular concern to small details such as regular mealtimes and sleeping.  
It was a bit of pain but he was a clone trooper, he would survive.  
They always did.


End file.
